"While Western automakers slashed investment during the pandemic, young Chinese competitors seized the opportunity. They built one large car factory after another. China is already the world's largest car manufacturer and exporter. Despite this, the production capacity of manufacturers such as BYD, NIO, and Geely is too large for the domestic market. According to industry insiders, many factories are only half of their capacity, and some are even lower. ”
On the 8th, Germany's "Economic Weekly" published an article by reporter Thomas Stozel under the title of "China's response to the 'automobile tsunami'", pointing out that the latest satellite images show that there is a bigger plan behind it. China hopes to inject millions of cars, especially electric vehicles, into the global market in the coming years. ”
The main reason for the current failure of this initiative at the Jinling shipyard in satellite imagery is the inability of Chinese manufacturers to ship their cars abroad. On top of that, they lacked the necessary means of car transport, the so-called ro-ro ships (ro-ro ships). Between 2019 and 2022, the country's automotive exports have increased sixfold. Shipping costs** are more than 800%. There are more than 700 such ships worldwide, of which less than 100 are operated by Chinese companies. The summer report of the China Shipbuilding Industry Association said that only about ten ships are suitable for ocean shipping.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., Chinese shipyards will build about 200 new RoRo ships by 2026 alone, 76 of which will be built for Chinese customers, Economic Week reported. Today, large Ro-Ro boats typically hold between 7000 and 9000 cars.
In less than three years, they will weld twice as many such ships as in the previous eight years. The Yangtze River Shipping (CSC) Jinling shipyard near Zhenjiang alone is apparently set to deliver more than 50 ro-ro vessels in the coming months. According to CSIS, the Guangzhou shipyard in the Pearl River Delta expects to build 42 of these behemoths by 2026, and the Yantai CIMC Raffles shipyard in the north will contribute 20. BYD has already ordered six ships, with the option to order two more. Chery is even working with the Wuhu shipyard on the Yangtze River to develop its own ships.
Another sign of the car tide that cars parked next to the Ro-Ro ships are flocking to the world can also be found in Chinese ports. Recently, a large area there has been converted into parking spaces for new car loading. More areas are currently being expanded. Nowhere is this development more pronounced than in the Pearl River Delta near Guangzhou. One of the islands here has been converted into a large exit parking lot. According to the statistics of the Guangzhou Port Authority, from January to September, Guangzhou outbound cars 2580,000 units. This is a 56% increase from the previous year. The Shanghai Auto Port, 1,200 kilometers further north, shipped 1.02 million vehicles in the first seven months of this year, up 55 percent from the same period last year. And Ningbo has built a brand new car terminal since 2015. The port should now be able to transport more than 1 million vehicles.
Port and logistics companies are also trying to find creative outlets. For example, they use special standard containers to transport vehicles out of the country. Three or four cars can be nested and stacked. As if this was not enough, the logistics group COSCO has now developed special racks that can stack vehicles on top of each other and transport them on ordinary bulk carriers. These ships now carry logs from Europe for the Chinese paper industry and Chinese cars to Europe on the return trip.
In order to overcome maritime bottlenecks, COSCO, a state-owned shipping company, established COSCO in August 2022 with the Port of Shanghai and Chinese automaker SAIC. Ocean Shipping Company is building a world-class fleet of professional car carriers to better help Chinese cars go to the global market. The first ships are already sailing on the route between China and Europe. Far Sea ordered 24 ships, which was eventually enough to deliver 700,000 vehicles per year to the world.
This is an unprecedented and major attack on top companies such as Volkswagen, Toyota, BMW and Stellantis, which are struggling in the field of electric vehicles today.
As soon as the shipyard delivers a new car carrier, this knot will most likely break. The country will then send millions of electric vehicles around the world. Behind this is a plan by Beijing that declares that so-called new energy vehicles are among the top 10 key areas where China should become a global leader.